Solved 2 mark questions in Advanced General Psychology, from past question papers.

Contributed by Dr Krithika for sharing among friends. The contributor does not warrant the accuracy of answer
from the exam perspective.

1. Define Psychology:-

Psychology is defined as the scientific study of behavior and mental process. The origin of the word
Psychology derived from two greek Words psyche and logos. Behaviour includes overt and covert
behavior mental process includes and conscious and unconscious mental process.

2. Intelligence:-

The ability to learn and understand (or) the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills is called
intelligence. It can be understood as a general set of mental abilities like discrete abilities, abstract
thinking communication, reasoning, learning,planning and problem solving ,adapt and learn from
experiences.

3. Intelligent Quotient:-

It’s a measure of the person’s intelligence derived by dividing individual’s and mental age by his
chronological age and multiplying the result by 100.The term was coined by William stern. The Formula
of IQ is as

IQ=
∗ 100

An IQ between

90 to 110 –Average

Above 120 – Superior

Below 70 –Mentally deficient

4. Language:-

Language is the human capacity of acquiring and using complex systems of communication. Language
permits the communication of information from one generation to another .The scientific study of
language is called linguistics.

Four elements of language are ,

Words

Grammar

Speech and writing

Alternate symbols and codes

5. Learning:-

Learning can be defined as the acquisition of new behavior (or) strengthening (or) weakening of old
behavior as the result of experience. It’s relatively permanent change in behavior including emotional
behavior that means acquisition of knowledge (or) motor skills to meet environment requirements.

6. Validity:-

Validity refers to a test’s ability to measure what it is supposed to measure. (For ex) A test of intelligence
and not something else. There are 2types of validity.

Content Validity- Valid Appropriate Content

1. Face validity
2. Construct validity

Criterion validity - Valid Relationship to other measure

1. Concurrent validity
2. Predictive validity

7. Variable:-

A Variable is any measurable attiributess than can be changes in characteristic (or) value of an ohjects
(or) human being

(Ex) Height, Weight etc

Experiments have 2 types of variables

Independent Variable – Controlled and manipulated by the experimenter

Dependent Variable – Measured by the Experimenter

8. Define Stress:-

It can be defined as a state of mental (or) emotional strain (or) tension resulting from adverse (or)
demanding circumstances. It’s the non-specific response of the body to any psychological (or)
Physiological demand for change.

(Ex) A stressful event can trigger the flight (or) fright response causing Hormones to surge through the
body
 9. Token Economy:-

Token Economy is a form of behavior ,Modification technique designed to increase desirable behavior
and decrease undesirable behavior with the use of tokens. Individuals receive token immediately after
displaying desirable behavior. The Tokens are collected and exchanged for a meaningful object (or)
privilege.

10. Control Group:-

It’s a group of subjects closed resembling the treatment group in many demographic variables but not
receiving the active medication (or) factor under study and thereby servicing as a comparison group
when treatment results are evaluated.

11. Behaviour :-

It’s the range of actions and mannerisms made by individuals, Organism, systems (or) artificial entities in
conjunction with themselves (or) their enviorment.It’s aggregate of all responses of the system (or)
Organism to various stimuli whether Internal (or External ,Conscious (or) Subconscious ,Overt (Or)
Covert and voluntary (or) Involuntary.

12. Behaviour Perspective :-

It’s a approach to Psychology that emphasizes on observable behaviour.It’s helps to understand

motivation deals with drives and Incentives. It focuses on observable behaviors instead of emphasizing
on internal state. Examples of behavior perspective include classical conditioning and operant
conditioning.

13. CNS:-

CNS is the processing center of the nervous system. The CNS is responsible for integrating sensory
information and responding accordingly. It consists of

Brain – Process and interprets sensory information and coordinating the function

Spinal cord – Serves as a conduit for signals between the brain and rest of the body.

14. Dopamine:-

Dopamine is a hormone and neuro transmitter that plays an important roles in the human brain and
body. It helps to control the brains reward and pleasure centres. As a chemical messenger dopamine is
similar to adrenalin, dopamine affects brain process that control movement, emotional response and
ability to experience pleasure and pain.

15. Perception:-

Perception is the Organization, identification and interpretation of sensory information in order to

represent and understand the environments. The brain automatically perceives the information Which i
result from physical (or) chemical stimulation of the sense organs..Ex- For Vision involves light striking
the retina of the eye.

16. Memory:-

Memory is the process which information in encoded stored and retrieved. It’s the ability to retain past
learning within the brain and then retain it for a long time and recognize and recall it at later stages as
per the demands of the situation.

It involves four factors,

Learning

Retention

Recognition

Recalling

17. Working Memory:-

It’s the basic operation of STM. It’s the system that is responsible for the transient holding and
processing of new (or) already stored information. It’s an active process to keep it until it’s put to use. It
plays an important role in concentration and in following instruction. There are two types of working
memory.

1. Auditory
2. Visual – Spatial

18. Conflict:-

The internal individual struggles results from incompatible (or) opposing needs, drives, (or) external and
internal demands. Psychologically, a conflict exists when the reduction of one motivating stimulus
involves an increase in another, So that a new adjustment is demanded.

19. Non-Verbal Reasoning:-

A standardized assessment series that measures pupils ability to engage in key reasoning process with
context free visual information .Non-Verbal reasoning involves no reading .So it can provide insight into
the abilities of pupils who think more easily in images than words and those who have limited reading
skills.(Ex) Dyslexics.

20. Generalization:-
It’s the tendency to respond in the same way to different but similar stimuli. when a subject acquires a
conditional response to a stimulus all other similar stimuli evoke the similar response.

(Ex) In the experiment, conducted on dog, the dog starts salivating when there is a sound of bell, and
also salivated to similar sounds also.

21. Introspection:-

Introspection is the examination of one’s own conscious thoughts and emotions. In psychology the
process of introspection relies exclusively on observation of one’s mental state. It’s closely related to
human self reflection .It’s an act of looking into oneself.

22. Neuro Transmitter:-

Neuro Transmitters are endogenous chemicals that transmit signals across a synapse from one neuron
to another target neuron. Neurotransmitters are released from synaptic vesicles in synapses into the
synaptic cleft where they are received by receptors.

There are two kinds of neurotransmitters

1. Inhibitory
2. Excitatory

23. Spinal Cord:-

The Spinal Cord is a long thin, Tubular bundle of nervous tissue and support cells that extends from the
medulla oblongata. It’s the most important structure to transit information between the body and brain.
Two consecutive rows of nerve routes emerge on each side of spinal cord and join distally to form 31
pairs of spinal nerves.

24. Psychophysics:-

It’s the scientific study of the relationship between stimuli (Physical) and the responses (Sensation
/Perception) Evoked by the stimuli. It’s commonly defined as branch of perception used to denote the
substantive study of stimulus response relationship and the methodologies used for this study

25. Emotion:-

It can be defined as a feeling, an aspect of consciousness characterized by a certain physical arousal

and certain behavior that reveals the feeling to both the outer and inner word..An emotion involves
three distinct components

Subjective (Or) Cognitive Experience

Physiological Response

Behavioral (or) Expressive Response

26. Creativity:-

Creativity is the ability to think about something in novel and unusual ways and come up with
unconventional solution to problems. It’s the process of producing something that is both original and
worth. The process of creativity consists of 5 stages

• Preparation
• Incubation
• Intimation
• Illumination
• Verification

27. Problem Solving:-

Problem Solving is a mental process that involves discovering, analyzing and solving problems. The
ultimate goal of problem solving is to overcome obstacles and find a solution that best resolves the
issue. Problem solving strategies are as follows,

• Difference Reduction
• Means ends analysis
• Work backward

28. Humanistic Perspective:-

The Humanistic perspective is a approach to psychology that emphasizes empathy and stresses the good
in human behavior. In counseling and therapy this approach allows and psychologist to focus on ways to
help to improve an individual’s self image (or) Self actualization.

29. ANS:-

ANS is a division of the peripheral nervous System that influence the function of internal organs such as
heart, stomach and intestines. It’s involuntary in nature also known as visceral and involuntary nervous
system.

The ANS divided into two parts

• Sympathetic nervous system

• Parasympathetic nervous system
 30. Attention :-

Attention is the behavioral and cognitive process of the selectively concentrating on discrete aspect of
information .Attention is a concept that refers to how we actively process the specific information
present in our environment.

31. Forgetting :-

Forgetting refers to apparent loss (or) modification of information already encoded and stored in an
individual’s long term memory. It’s a spontaneous (or) gradual process in which old memories are
unable to be recalled from memory storage. Forgetting is usually regarded as liability.

32. Frustration:-

Frustration is a common emotional response to opposition. It’s related to anger and disappointment. It
arises from the perceived resistance to the fulfillment of individuals will. Some of the typical responses
to frustration include anger, stress, depression, quiting, loss of self confidence and esteem

33. Abstraction:-

It’s a cognitive process which we store the meaning of message and not the exact wording and
grammatical structure. The abstraction process includes four different psychological functions,

• Sensation
• Intuition
• Feeling
• Thinking

34. Case Method:-

The case method is a teaching approach that uses decision- forcing cases to put students in the role of
people who were faced with difficult decisions at sometimes in the past. In this method the instructors
refrain from providing their own opinions and asking the students to devise and defend solution to the
problems.

35. Functions of Hypothalamus:-

 The hypothalamus is a portion of the brain that contains a number if small nuclei with a variety of
functions, they are

• Controls the ANS thereby responsible for maintaining Homeostasis.

• Controls the pituitary gland and most of endocrine gland
• It’s the site of emotions – Happiness ,Fear, Cry
• It controls thirst ,Hunger,Sleep,Sex drive,etc

36. Define Aptitude:-

An Aptitude is a innate inborn ability (or) innate capacity to learn to do certain kind of work. Aptitude is
not a developed knowledge, understanding, learned (or) acquired abilities.

There are two types of aptitude

• General – Potential in several fields

• Specific - Potential in a Particular Area

37. Illusion:-

An Illusion is a distortion of a sensory perception in presence of the external stimulus. Illusion is a

normal experience that happens to all human beings

There are two types of illusions,

Perceptual illusions - incorrect impressions caused by misinterpretation of information.

Sensory Illusions - false perception.

38. Binocular cues :-

It’s the property of the visual system that facilitates depth perception by the nature of messages that
are sent to the brain. Binocular cues refer to depth cues in which both eyes are needed to perceive.

There are two important binocular cues

• Convergence
• Refinal Disparity

39. Chaining:-
This is a behavior technique involves breaking a complex task into smaller components .The simplest (or)
1st task in the process is taught first. Once the task has been learned the next task can be taught. This
continues until the entire sequence is successfully chained together.

40. Autobiographical Memory :-

Autobiographical memory is a memory system consisting of episodes recollected from the course one’s
own life time. The information can be divided into

• Episodic memories – Helps to recollect times, location, People

• Semantic memories – General Fact
• Event – Specific Knowledge-Information pertaining to important Events.